The Code II
by webgeekist
Summary: (KotOR, DSM ending, some KotOR II spoliers) The most perilous parts of the Force are the shades of grey between darkness and light.


It might be prudent to mention that this story more or less follows a KotOR II plotline without going into too much detail. People who wish to remain completely spoiler-free should go away. Otherwise, I'm not revealing anything major.

**The Code II**

_by: Temporal Rift _

Three years passed. They were glorious years in which the fleets of ships that Revan and Bastila led against the disorganized Republic were successful beyond measure. They were three years in which Carth Onasi found himself planning battle strategy alongside them. They were three years that could change everything.

The more Araven was exposed to the Lord and Lady, the more she learned about any weaknesses they might have had. She discovered that the old, dead Sith Masters were partially right – the only weaknesses that Revan and Bastila might have were each other. Even so, they were insanely strong Force users, and among the best saber duelists in the galaxy. Even then, they left themselves open to subtle attacks, though the only people close enough to take advantage of them were Canderous Ordo and herself. It would be a simple matter to overtake them while they were in the throes of their mutual passion, to kill them in their bed and take over the empire, but doing so would be a suicide of a different sort. A few traditionalists, the Opposition, failed to recognize that the revolution the Lords started had spread like water on the smooth stone floor or the Rakatan Temple, and its interruption now would cast the Sith into a chaos from which they would never emerge. She protected that revolution to avoid the destruction of the only way of live she knew.

More than that, Araven found that she actually respected her masters. The devious, evil corner of her mind was constantly baffled by this. What that particular section of her brain found all the more puzzling was that she found herself increasingly protective of them, as well. There was something slowly changing. This something was slowly changing her, as well.

She wasn't yet sure if it was a good thing or not.

_There is no emotion, there is peace_

She had morning sparring sessions with the Lord Revan and the Lady Bastila almost daily. While they parried each other, they would speak of plans, ideas and the nature of the galaxy. She was often stunned by her lords' depth of thought.

And on one particular day, she found she was no less stunned.

"You still fight with too much anger."

Her masters were not typical Sith – this was why they ruled so well. And yet, that comment was the most un-Sith-like thing she'd ever heard.

"I'm sorry, my Lord?"

"You harbor too much hatred within you while you're fighting."

She barely dodged a thrust in time, and his saber singed her hair on its way back to a guard position. "I understand that using hatred alone to drive a battle is an ill-fated tactic, my Lord, but you have said on many occasions that hatred is the best fuel your actions can have so long as it's controlled."

"I have. And yet, you should focus on the quality of the hatred you use rather than the quantity."

Another thrust, another singed hair. "I do not understand, Master."

"Using hatred for one thing – the Jedi, for instance – against an upstart member of the Opposition serves no purpose. Instead, it makes your hatred become unfocused and wild."

"I find focus, Master."

"Yes, you do. And quite well. You should, however, try focusing with an idea or emotion close to that which you do battle against."

"Would that not potentially be a weakness? If my enemy manages to goad me into a mistake --"

"That would be your failure." He said it harshly, punctuating it with another stab. The gap was smaller – he managed to singe clothing.

They always practiced with their own lightsabers, though the goal was never to maim or harm, only to improve. Revan and Araven had their round, then Bastila would have a go at her. The Dark Lady of the Sith stood by the side of their practice chamber, waiting patiently and watching carefully.

Araven could see Revan's point, but like any other attack this type would hold a great deal of risk. Closing oneself off to physical attack entirely, the result would be an increased possibility of mental attack. Revan was right – failure would be due to her own weakness.

She was inspired to try it tentatively by yet another swipe at her clothing. She reached deep into her reservoir of hate and tried to find something relevant to the current battle, but she kept coming up empty.

When she found herself on her back, lightsaber across the room and Revan's blade punctuating her defeat, she realized why this tactic had failed during the battle.

She held no hate for this man, nor for his queen.

None.

That dark corner of her mind screamed in frustration.

Revan backed away long enough to allow her to find her saber and feet once more. He walked to Bastila, then Bastila walked into the practice ring.

She began working on her immediately, but Araven could tell that she held back.

"You didn't fare well with that strategy. Why?"

Frustration alone rose to the surface. Frustration bred impatience. Impatience caused mistakes.

"Because I failed to find the proper emotion for the battle."

"And why is that?"

The speed picked up again, and Araven found herself working incredibly hard at focus.

"I had no emotion."

"None whatsoever? I find that hard to believe."

She threw a flurry at the younger human, one Araven very nearly missed blocking.

"I had none of use to the battle."

"Where did your hatred go? Where is your hatred now?"

A power attack, followed by a perfect critical strike and two masterful flurries. Araven was on her knees.

"I hold no hatred for you!"

Her saber was raised in defense as Bastila's came up above her head, but the moment the words rang out, the battle stopped. Slowly, the Dark Lady lowered her weapon.

"Really?"

"Yes, my Lady."

"You hold no hatred at all?"

"Of course I do, my Lady! I hate the Republic, and all its pathetic little weaknesses. I hate the injustice and imbalance of the corrupt system. I hate the Opposition rebels who believe that change should be forbidden, these short-sighted Sith that would destroy the galaxy in forced stagnation. I hate the masters, so long dead, that spoke ill of you and disregarded me. But…I can find no hatred for you."

"Indeed."

The admission made her feel weak, and the weakness made her angry enough. At the same time, she found that she could not blame the Dark Lords.

"I have failed you, my Lady. You should take my life as punishment."

A long moment passed before Bastila sighed and shook her head. "I have no need for your extinguished life. I do, however, have need for you alive."

Araven looked up to her mistress.

"I have discovered something, Araven, and this may weaken the empire we have tried so hard to build. I will need your help protecting this secret."

"Anything, my Lady." Loyalty. This had so much to do with loyalty.

Revan came back into the practice ring. "We tell you this because we know we can trust you, Araven."

Admiration. Her loyalty had so much to do with admiration. "Thank you, my Lord."

"I am with child, Araven."

Compassion. She felt compassion for these two people.

She felt _compassion?!_

"My lords--"

"We know of your struggles. You above all others understand our motives and goals. You above all others would be changed by what we try to do. Compassion – in very limited quantities – is just as powerful as hate. Understanding compassion gives an insight into the mentality of a Jedi opponent. The capability for compassion in an apprentice is exactly what we were hoping for."

"We would like for you to help us train the child, when it is born. In the meantime, we will need your help to stand against the Opposition."

"My Lords, this seems so much like a Jedi conversation."

"Even after all this time, after all you've been through, you still see this universe as divided between the lines of black and white? Araven, the Force is all shades of gray, shades where the most successful are the ones in the very center. It's not really about good versus evil, is it? It's not about cutting down people mercilessly or being an emotionless puppet. The balance is somewhere in the middle."

Araven didn't have a word to argue with. Somehow, it all made sense to her.

"But you already knew that."

She nodded. "Yes, my Lord."

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge_

Carth Onasi had not changed as much as she had expected him to. Most people who join the Sith become a little darker simply by association, but Carth's personality and nature remained mostly the same. He held sympathy for the people of other planets, planned battles around how many casualties they were likely to cause and seemed to genuinely care about the Dark Lady and Lord. Loyalty was far more common a trait amongst the naval officers, but the admiral was one of the only ranking officers that exhibited any degree of it. The other, of course, was General Ordo, though the man was released to find the remnants of his people two years previous.

They had an uneasy truce. If he blamed anyone for the destruction of his fleet at Deralia, it was her. She, on the other hand, still didn't trust him not to defect back to the Republic. His change of heart seemed far too abrupt.

"Something's up with Bastila," he said as Araven arrived on the bridge. "I'm getting the feeling that it's not such a good thing."

"I do not believe she would do anything that would not benefit the Empire."

"Yeah, but there are actually things beyond her control."

She wondered if this man knew their secret. It seemed logical that the Lords would tell him, eventually, but it was not her place to say. She told him as much.

He turned back to the display he was studying, no longer really looking at it. Araven sensed a shift in him.

"I remember when my wife started acting like her. I have to genuinely worry for Bastila, though. Either her control has slipped or she's pregnant."

Araven, oddly, had not been aware of Admiral Onasi's marriage.

"You had a child?"

"Yeah. His name is Dustil. He's helping out the Telos restoration effort."

"Then you fight against him?"

"He was Sith. He never went back to join the Republic, he just went home."

Araven nodded. "I see."

"They haven't told me anything about it, yet…but if I'm noticing the changes, someone else is bound to, sooner or later. She's probably what, three or four months along?"

She didn't answer. He didn't need her to, but he turned to face her, anyway.

"I'm not after them, Araven. They are still my friends. I just want to help protect them."

He was strong, and of that she had no doubt. But she could feel the undercurrent of his emotions without even trying, and that made him dangerous if he were ever to learn certain truths. More and more Sith were choosing to follow rather than feeling obliged. Some of the apprentices saw the future as a glorious whirlwind of change from stifling tradition. Still others saw Revan and Bastila as threats. They would use Carth Onasi for his lack of control over the Force, use his knowledge against them all. She could not allow that.

"You will know soon enough whether or not your assumptions are correct."

_There is no passion, there is serenity_

It took little time.

Lady Bastila began to show in her fourth month. It was a stressful time to be with child – the final assault on the core worlds was about to be pushed into its full-scale plans and the lords had already repelled three challenges for power in five weeks. Araven was proud to have been present to hack down one of the idiot would-be assassins before he ever came close to the Dark Lady. The incredible failure of the plots against them struck fear into the hearts of those that would try again, although the child was a very exploitable weakness that had already produced some…unpredictable behavior.

Carth had started treating the Dark Lady much more delicately, having had experience with a pregnant woman. The admiral still made swift exits from the throne room on occasion, having riled Bastila's temper. It cost Revan three new protocol droids before he figured out that programming it to honestly answer questions like "do I look fat?" would result in a carbon-scored chassis, a fused memory core and a fried processor.

Araven was surprised to find that she had the least trouble adjusting to the Dark Lady's mood swings. She wondered if it wasn't some sort of natural instinct women had.

To cap off their troubles, there was talk there was new leadership in the Opposition in the form of a pair of angry yet deadly Darths named Sion and Nihilus. Their histories spoke of strong Force users, and their abilities were phenomenal. It was rumored that Nihilus had actually destroyed an entire world single-handedly, killing much of the remaining Jedi Council in the process. It was an impressive feat – one none of them had ordered. Araven felt that it was these two who stood the greatest chance of thwarting Revan and Bastila's vision for the Empire, a feeling shared by her masters.

There were many things wrong with that.

She was meditating in her chambers aboard the _Guilty Spark_ in the middle of the Core Campaign when she felt the strangest thing. It was like someone had struck a tuning fork against her fiber in the Force, and it roused her from her deep thoughts. By some second nature, she was led through the hallway to a set of closed, locked doors. When awareness returned to the young Sith, she realized she was standing outside Lady Bastila's private chambers.

"Master?" she called. "Master, are you in there?"

The only response she received was the soft click of the unlocking door.

The room was dark, the only light within it cast by the hyperspeed starburst outside the large picture windows. Bastila was meditating, much as Araven had been before having her attention drawn out by the strange presence in the Force.

"Yes, young Araven?"

"My apologies, My Lady. I was…drawn here."

"By a strange sensation in the Force?"

Of course. It shouldn't surprise her that Bastila had felt it, as well. "Yes."

"It was a very odd sensation."

Immediately after hearing those words, she felt it again. She was still baffled, but this time it felt…familiar.

"You are feeling the presence of my unborn child in the waves of the Force."

Many things ran through her mind all at once – amazement, trepidation and more confusion – but an important thought occurred to her, and all the rest of it faded away.

"If I could feel that, many other Force-Sensitives did, as well."

"Yes. The child is no longer hidden."

Araven nodded. "That means the child is no longer safe."

"The child is safer within my womb than it will be outside of it for the first several years of its life. My combat abilities, however, have already diminished, as has my connection with the Force. This child's presence within it tells me that I have not lost that connection, it has simply been redirected."

"This puts you at great risk, My Lady."

Bastila finally turned to face her apprentice. "You have a remarkable amount of loyalty for a Sith. I wonder where that came from."

It was a question Araven asked herself every day, a question that the dark corner of her mind demanded an answer to every time she saw a new weakness within her masters. It was a question she had never been able to answer.

"I always had it. I've had it since I heard that bastard upstart Jaxsun speak ill of you, and it's been solid since you killed his master."

"That statement leads me to wonder if you were ever truly a Sith."

She stared at her mistress. "What do you mean?"

"The Sith are ruthless. They stop at nothing to gain personal prestige and promote the Dark Side. They exploit any and all weaknesses without regard to the people they hurt in the process. And they don't know loyalty, compassion, mercy…or love."

"My Lady, forgive me…but you do not seem to fit that description any more than I."

Bastila nodded. "You are right."

Araven sighed. "We are not Jedi – no Jedi would do what we've done so unabashedly – and yet we are apparently not Sith. What are we?"

"We are the middle ground. We are the compromise. Emotional Peace, Ignorant Knowledge, Passionate Serenity and Chaotic Harmony."

"That is not compromise. That is contradiction. That is a paradox."

"Yes."

They stood there, silently, for several seconds.

"Are we also the death of the Force?"

She shook her head. "I do not know. But I do not believe so."

"Why not?"

Bastila seated herself before the viewports. "Because we still feel it."

_There is no chaos, there is harmony_

One by one, the Core worlds fell. Alderaan, Corellia, Balmorra and Charmath were within the realm of the Sith Empire within a further three months, and all that remained of the Republic strongholds was a handful of minor outer worlds and the capital planet of Coruscant. Araven, raised on outer rim planets and recruited by the Sith at an early age, had never seen core worlds before, and the prospect of standing on Coruscant's surface beside her Lord and Lady in triumph excited her. She found herself longing to walk along the Great Walkway between the senate chambers and the sacred Jedi Temple, but she did not desire to destroy any of it. In her mind, these places were beautiful, and she did not wish to destroy such beauty.

She nonetheless knew it had to be done.

There were few Jedi left now, most of them having gone into hiding from Darth Nihilus' campaign of death. The destruction of the Jedi Temple would cement Revan's hold over the rest of the Sith. There had been seven more attacks, three of which Araven had dealt with. The best of these arrogant opponents had yet to deal any kind of blows against the combined Darths before being dispatched, but they were not the strongest of the Sith Opposition…merely the most impatient.

Corsucant was all-important to the future of the Empire.

From the bridge of her ship, the Dark Apprentice watched the preparations of the fleet with an unforgiving eye. There was no room for error in this battle, and the sense of urgency filtering through command was likely to make men prone to errors. The Dark Lady would use her Battle Meditation against the Republic, as she had since the Battle of the Star Forge. Lord Revan would personally command the fleet from the bridge of the command cruiser, and Darth Araven would lead the invasion force on the ground. It would provide her that one opportunity to see Coruscant's beauty before she gave the order to destroy it.

But major problems were already developing. The soldiers were nervous and the fleet was shaky, an unusual set of circumstances for a veteran force. It could be cured by Bastila's Battle Meditation, but her ability to summon the Force varied from day to day. If the child was not born prior to the battle, the chances of her Battle Meditation making any sort of difference became less than forty percent.

And then there was the less obvious problem, the sublevel dilemma of subtle espionage. She had found and routed three spies in four days on the _Guilty Spark_ alone, and though she knew more existed she had a harder time finding them when they knew she was coming.

At the end of the day, she returned to her chambers and her meditation. She was disturbed by visions of an unknown origin, visions she failed to recall after having them. All she could conclusively remember was that they foretold the downfall of their Empire at the hands of a Jedi, but she could not tell when this would occur or who the Jedi was.

Araven was in the midst of one of these visions five days before the start of the battle when the Force itself shook her into the now. Disoriented and confused, she could only feel the screams echoing through it for a long moment. Finally, after a long moment of near senselessness, she could identify what she felt.

An event of great importance was occurring near her, one that was causing one person a great deal of pain, another anxiety and a last…her life.

She knew immediately that the Lady Bastila had gone into labor.

The entire crew of the ship seemed to be in the hallways as she rushed though. Without really paying attention to where they landed, she Force Pushed most of them out of the way until she arrived at the sealed door of Bastila's Chambers.

What lie on the other side of the door was near carnage. The Dark Lady lay on her bed, screaming for medics and anything that would save her child. The Dark Lord sat beside her, helpless and powerless. Two medic droids and one human medic rushed around, trying desperately to do as she asked lest they all become embedded in the bulkheads.

As she entered, so did the ship's chief medical officer.

There was something about the woman that put Araven on immediate guard. Perhaps it was the fact that the woman walked into the chambers fearless, perhaps simply that the woman looked far too shrewd to be an effective medical practitioner. In any case, she found herself bringing up the rear and keeping close eye on her.

"My Lord," Araven said as she neared the very worried-looking Revan, "what has happened?"

His expression was as close to helpless as it could get. She realized that neither of them had any idea.

"The child has not turned, and the labor has progressed too far to allow for natural birth. My Lord, I must recommend that we take Lady Bastila to the surgical ward and extract the child."

Araven frowned at the woman. _Extract? _Wasn't there a better word for it?

She turned to her Lady, who seemed to have an equally skeptical look on her face, then to her Lord, whose eyes had hardened.

"Do what you must," she said at length.

The woman reached over to one of the protocol droids and retrieved a dose of some drug, then turned to administer it to Bastila.

And it set off a warning in Araven's head.

Bastila and Revan apparently noticed it, as well, because the woman on the bed grabbed the doctor's hand before the drug could be disseminated and Revan's hand bore twin red lightsabers. It was Araven, however, that had summoned her saber from its position at her hip and thrown it through the woman's head.

Another spy dispatched.

But it did not solve their immediate problem. The last presence in the room was fading, and they had little time to save the child.

"We must attempt a healing trance, Araven. I believe it may be the only way to stop what is happening."

Her eyes widened. There were few Sith that could ever summon enough lightside Force energy to send someone into a healing trance, but then…they were not truly Sith, were they?

She would later be surprised by how easy it was. Between the three of them, they were able to calm the progression of Bastila's labor long enough to allow the child to turn. This major point accomplished, the birth proceeded normally, and the daughter of the Dark Lord and Lady of the Sith was born into their world. Araven was present to watch the girl bond with her parents for the first time, and was joined moments later by Admiral Carth Onasi.

"Wow. She's beautiful," he said upon seeing the newborn. Bastila smiled at him, then looked to her husband. The Dark Lord of the Sith stood proudly over his family, a subtle smile playing about his lips.

"We owe you both a lot," Revan said. "But Araven…your actions today helped save my daughter. You are a great asset to us, and you will have my eternal thanks."

She gazed at the child as she nested in her mother's arms.

"It was my pleasure, my Lord," she replied.

Discovering the doctor's treachery was an easy link to several other spies. She had suspected a highly ranked officer's involvement all along. She spent the next several days performing the triple duty of overseeing the fleet, guarding her Lady and conferring with Carth to root out the remaining traitors.

On the fifth day, they entered the Coruscant System.

_There is no death, there is the Force_

There was to be no easy battle, no neatly defeated Republic this day. The force that met them at Coruscant was three times larger than they expected, which would be large enough to cripple the Sith fleet, destroy their leadership and retake the Core Worlds without much trouble.

Their only hope, as ever, was the Battle Meditation that the Dark Lady now had full control over once again. The only problem was that she could not be as attentive as she needed to be unless someone watched over her newborn daughter. Araven volunteered to do so until the invasion force was ready to launch.

Five hours into the battle, neither side was emerging as the clear victor, and yet there was a doomed feeling sinking into the pit of the leadership's stomachs. They had missed something crucial, and there was no denying it. Revan pulled his apprentice aside.

"How many traitors did you discover?"

"Seventeen on this ship, My Lord. Others may have escaped me within the rest of the fleet."

She could tell something disturbed him, but it wasn't directly the lingering traitors. "I have led us into a trap."

"I don't understand, My Lord. The battle is going well."

The child Araven still held started wailing in agony, and the adept apprentice could sense that she was being attacked through the Force. Both she and the father instinctively reached out to shield her, but their efforts were pale and pathetic. The effort to repel the Force attack came from another source,

Moments later, a soul-ripping scream shot through the bridge. They both ran to the source, only to find the Dark Lady pitched over on the deck. Revan rushed to her side, pulling her off the metal grating. Blood streamed freely from her nose and ears, pooling on the floor below.

"Bastila!"

Her answer was a weak cough.

"My love, what happened?"

Araven watched her mistress's eyes flutter open, only to see through the slits that her eyes were completely bloodshot, as if every vessel in them had ruptured. She recalled having seen this once before as she studied the Force by proxy, in the eyes of an arrogant student whose mind was brutally attacked by his master. The poor boy had lived for three further days in agonizing pain, unable to speak, eat or breathe for all the blood and stricken blind by the strange ocular affliction.

She had a measure of protection against such attacks, and utilized it for both herself and the child. Her mistress probably did, as well, but surrendered it for the sake of her daughter.

She would need medical attention. The best healer aboard the ship had been a spy.

"Nihilus. He is here."

Revan's eyes widened. "So this is the nature of his betrayal."

Through the viewports, five new Opposition Heavy Cruisers appeared in their escape route and stared firing on Revan's fleet.

"I must return to my meditation."

"My Lady! You need a medic immediately!"

Bastila's hand moved to caress Revan's face, and he sighed at the contact. "Very well, my Love. I will buy you as much time as I can."

The Dark Lady turned her blood red eyes to her apprentice. "Take my child to the Jedi. They are the only ones that will escape this battle."

Araven shook her head. "I don't understand. What are you saying?"

Revan looked to her from his standing position. "She is saying we have lost."

There was nothing in her knowledge of these two people that dictated they should give up so easily. She mentioned as much, spat it back in their faces. Bastila simply smiled.

"You are more Sith than I if you cannot see the truth of our situation."

There should have been a swell of pride at that statement, but there wasn't. It left an empty hole where her heart should have been. The dark corner of Araven's mind cursed her as a weakling.

"Take our child, Araven. Take her to safety. Only you can do this. We are already doomed."

She disagreed. She wanted to stay at their side and fight. She wanted to make sure the battle was won, and that the bastard abomination of a man who had attacked the innocent in her arms paid for his indiscretion with his eternal soul.

But the loyal disciple of Revan and Bastila, fueled by a faith in a cause she couldn't describe with words, could not refuse her Lord and Lady's final request.

"As you wish, my Masters," she said.

The ship shuddered beneath her feet. Bastila returned to her battle meditation. Revan turned back to the bridge. Araven made her escape along the forward corridor, towards the Dark Lord and Lady's personal yacht. She heard an explosion behind he, and turned to see a grisly, dead-looking figure stalk toward her master, lightsaber drawn.

Sion.

She felt the urge to draw her own saber and rush back to his side, but the bundle in her arms squirmed enough to draw her back to reality. She had to get off the ship.

Their escape was easy, but their landing wasn't. The approaching yacht was shot down by Republic forces, Her goal was the Jedi Temple – she wound up on a walking platform a kilometer away.

The spires of the temple could be seen over the buildings, glistening in waning sunlight and the bright beams of gunfire. She ran to it like a mad exile toward a mirage in a desert, avoiding everything in her way astutely. She turned one last corner to find herself on the Great Walkway. The Senate Chambers were on one end, the Jedi Temple on the other. Both were as beautiful as she imagined.

Beautiful, that is, except for the hundreds of Opposition soldiers who were already storming toward her destination.

The child remained silent as she approached the forces that stood between her and the temple. Immediately, she began reciting the Sith Code to herself, preparing for the greatest lightsaber battle she would ever face.

'Peace is a lie, there is only passion'

She dodged the first three blows and several dozen blaster shots, parrying with a flurry and a critical strike. She was surprised to see that the man standing before her dodged them easily, then struck back with a power attack of his own. It sent her off balance.

'Through passion, I gain strength.'

Another opposing Sith joined in the fight, and he found herself struggling to fend off the two attacks. She summoned up a Force Wave to knock them off their feet, but it only knocked them back a little.

'Through strength, I gain power.'

One of her opponents managed to graze her arm, and Araven was forced to hop back as another came down towards the child she carried. She was dismayed to notice that her focus was no enough to overcome these two men, and there were easily ten more losing on her location. Hopelessness – something she'd never felt before – began to set in.

And that's when she felt her master's presence truly depart. Bastila's Battle Meditation had broken, and in its place was an empty hole. The child mewled, as if she could feel the fate of her mother. Her opponents took advantage of her stunned state and slashed at her, striking her on the leg and across the face before Araven could fend off their attacks. A single thought ran through her mind.

'There is no death.'

As these words filtered through her soul, she knew what had to be done.

The center of her focus changed. The Sith Code no longer applied to her, if it ever truly had. She was the compromise, the paradox. She was the last survivor of a dying vision, carrying with her the only hope of completing what she had worked so hard to accomplish, and as she fought her way through these power-driven, hate-fueled mindless morons she had always despised for their weakness, she found herself dispatching them with the compassion of a Jedi rather than the ruthlessness of a Sith.

And when she emerged on the other side of the battle as the last one standing, she gazed upon the shining pillars of the Jedi Temple with some small understanding of what it meant to be a Jedi.

She hobbled up the steps, clutching her charge carefully. The doors at the apex were thrown open, as if awaiting her. On the other side was blue light like she had never seen or known.

She collapsed to her knees in the doorway, unable to take another step forward.

"You have ridden the wave of War to arrive here, Araven Theid," a disembodied voice said through the light. "Do you bring with you our destruction, or have you brought our salvation?"

She looked down at the child, the child that her Lord and Lady had given over to her care, and her heart broke. A part of her had looked forward to seeing her grow into something great, but it was not her destiny to be there to see it.

"I bring you the heir to the Empire," she said. "I bring you this child, and I ask you to look after her."

"And how would you have us raise this child? This Sith child?"

"I would have you raise her knowing that her parents gave everything they had for her. I would have you raise her knowing what her parents did. She is not Sith. None of us really were."

She gently lay the newborn down before her, then caressed the infant's soft cheek before breaking contact forever.

"What would you have us call her?"

There was never a response. The woman that had brought the child had disappeared from the entryway.

An elderly woman walked to the entry and picked the little girl up from the floor. She cooed softly as she snuggled into the warmth of her arms.

"They would have named her Helena," the Jedi decided.


End file.
